Green Music Center Announces Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers And Guitarist Jason Vieaux

On Saturday, March 30, 2019 at 7:30pm, Billboard top-selling violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and Grammy-winning classical guitarist Jason Vieaux join forces for a performance in Weill Hall (1801 E Cotati Ave) at Sonoma State University, presented by the Green Music Center.

Their program features original works and arrangements for violin and guitar, spanning the Baroque era to the 21st Century. Works include Corelli's Sonata in D minor "La Folia" (arr. Andy Poxon) (guitar/violin); Philip Glass' Metamorphosis II (arr. Michael Riesman for Meyers); Astor Piazzolla's Histoire du Tango; John Corigliano's Lullaby for Natalie (written for Meyers, 2010); and Manuel De Falla's Siete Canciones Populares Espanolas.

After performing highly acclaimed performances at the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina, Meyers and Vieaux created this recital program, which is the first of a four-city tour, including performances in Washington D.C., New Jersey, and Florida. Meyers and Vieaux will each perform a solo work: Rentar? Taki's Kojo No Tsuki (The Moon over the Ruined Castle) (arr. Anne Akiko Meyers) for solo violin and Antônio Carlos Jobím's A Felicidade (arr. Dyens) for solo guitar.

Anne Akiko Meyers is one of today's most important violinists, performing as guest soloist with the world's top orchestras, presenting ground-breaking recitals, commissioning and performing new music, and releasing best-selling recordings. Many of Anne's 37 albums have debuted at #1 on Billboard classical charts and she was the top-selling instrumentalist of 2014.

Recently, John Williams personally chose her to perform "Schindler's List" for a television broadcast of Great Performances that aired on more than 300 PBS stations throughout America and was personally selected by legendary composer Arvo Pärt, to open his new concert hall at the Arvo Pärt Centre in Estonia.

This summer, Meyers will perform the Barber Concerto with James Gaffigan and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival and premiere Adam Schoenberg's Concerto Orchard in Fog (a work written for her) at the prestigious Enescu Festival in Romania. In October, she performs the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in Leipzig at the Gewandhaus and will tour Japan with the MDR Leipzig Orchestra, conducted by Kristjan Järvi.

In the fall of 2018, Anne released her highly acclaimed 37th recording, entitled Mirror in Mirror on Avie Records. Her recording of Einojuhani Rautavaara's Fantasia, a work written for her, was the only classical instrumental work to be selected on National Public Radio's 100 best songs of 2017.

Meyers commissions and premieres works by many of today's leading composers including Julia Adolphe, Mason Bates, Jakub Ciupinski, John Corigliano, Michael Daugherty, Jennifer Higdon, Samuel Jones, Arturo Marquez, Wynton Marsalis, Arvo Pärt, Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Adam Schoenberg. She has also collaborated with a diverse array of artists outside of traditional classical, including jazz icons Chris Botti and Wynton Marsalis as well as Il Divo and Michael Bolton. She performed the National Anthem in front of 42,000 fans at Safeco Field in Seattle, and has appeared twice on The Tonight Show in addition to the Countdown with Keith Olbermann, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS' "The Good Wife," NPR's Morning Edition, and All Things Considered.

Anne Akiko Meyers studied with Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld at the Colburn School of Performing Arts, Josef Gingold at Indiana University, and Felix Galimir, Masao Kawasaki, and Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School. She received the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Distinguished Alumna Award from the Colburn School of Music. She performs on the Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù, dated 1741, considered by many to be the finest sounding violin in existence. Please visit www.anneakikomeyers.com for more information.

Grammy-winner Jason Vieaux, "among the elite of today's classical guitarists" (Gramophone), is the guitarist that goes beyond the classical. His most recent solo album, Play, won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. Vieaux has earned a reputation for putting his expressiveness and virtuosity at the service of a remarkably wide range of music, and his schedule of performing, and recording commitments is distinguished throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Jason Vieaux has performed as soloist with over 100 orchestras in the U.S. and abroad. Additional recent and future highlights include performances at Caramoor Festival as Artist-in-Residence, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the National Gallery of Art, San Francisco's Herbst Theatre, Buenos Aires' Teatro Colon, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, New York's 92Y, Ravinia Festival, and many other distinguished series. A first-rate chamber musician and programmer, he frequently collaborates with artists such as the Escher Quartet, harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, and accordion/bandoneon virtuoso Julien Labro. His passion for new music has fostered premieres by Jonathan Leshnoff, Avner Dorman, Jeff Beal, Dan Visconti, David Ludwig, Vivian Fung, José Luis Merlin, and more. Vieaux's latest CD release is a performance of Jeff Beal's "Six Sixteen" Guitar Concerto with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra (BIS). He has upcoming releases on Azica and Naxos, and recent recordings include Infusion (Azica) with accordionist/bandoneonist Julien Labro; Ginastera's Guitar Sonata, which is featured on Ginastera: One Hundred (Oberlin Music) produced by harpist Yolanda Kondonassis; and Together (Azica), a duo album with Kondonassis.

In 2012, the Jason Vieaux School of Classical Guitar was launched with ArtistWorks Inc., an interface that provides one-on-one online study with Vieaux for guitar students around the world. In 2011, he co-founded the guitar department at the Curtis Institute of Music, and in 2015 was invited to inaugurate the guitar program at the Eastern Music Festival. Vieaux has taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music since 1997, heading the guitar department since 2001. He has received a Naumburg Foundation top prize, a Cleveland Institute of Music Distinguished Alumni Award, GFA International Guitar Competition First Prize, and a Salon di Virtuosi Career Grant. His primary teachers were Jeremy Sparks and John Holmquist. Vieaux was the first classical musician to be featured on NPR's "Tiny Desk" series. Jason Vieaux plays a 2013 Gernot Wagner guitar with Augustine strings.

For more information, visit www.jasonvieaux.com.

 

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